How to Utilise SEO for Apps

The technology that your business pushes out into the world can be extremely valuable. But, typically, only if you know how to really utilise this technology from a marketing point of view. Your app is no different. With that in mind, here are some ideas for how you can utilise SEO when it comes to marketing your brand new app.

Choose a Keyword-Rich App Name

This is a pretty simple, but an effective way to ensure SEO for your app is implemented from day one. Naming your app something which includes your target keyword, whether that be ‘tech support’ or whatever else, can be a quick win. If your brand already ranks or is well-known, then obviously you want to make sure that is part of the name as well. Another keyword can also be used as an app descriptor, this can be used like a meta title when it comes to website SEO.

Obviously, the trick for this is to not be overly spammy with your keywords. Stuffing keywords into your app name or title, though well-meaning, will be very obvious and may put people off downloading – so try to stay as organic as possible.

Optimise in the App Store

A big part of SEO for your app is ensuring that it is optimised in the app store itself. Part of this optimisation should be keyword research, as with any good SEO practice, as outlined in the above point. Other than that, you need to make sure that it is optimised for conversions. This includes a number of factors, including:

App Icon – make sure this is attractive and people want to have it on their phone!

Screenshots – let people know what your app is like before download.

Video – like above, but in motion!

Reviews – make sure people can clearly see others opinion on the app! Good reviews can increase your download rates by a lot.

App Indexing

An interesting new feature for Google is known as App Indexing. This is where your app itself appears in the search results, not just in the app store. This only happens when your users are searching for your app on mobile, however, so it’s still worthwhile to follow the next step to capture desktop users. This first rolled out to Android, so is definitely something Alexa developers took advantage of.

Indexing your app is pretty simple. You need to support deep links on your app, publish them and ensure they adhere to Google guidelines – that’s it! Simple, but necessary for anyone serious about optimising their app for SEO.

Creating a Landing Web Page

Of course, you shouldn’t leave all of your potential conversions to the app store alone. This is where more traditional SEO – for websites – comes into play. So, even if you don’t have a proper website overall – having a small website to direct people to your app can be extremely useful. Especially as you won’t always capture everyone with the above app indexing, especially if they’re on desktop when searching for your business or app.

A small landing page website doesn’t have to be a technical marvel. Therefore, it’s quite a cheap way to promote your app. Just make sure you optimise it for SEO in the same way you would every other website and using the same keywords as your app. That way, people are guaranteed to find it!

Optimise the Website for Conversions

Realistically, you want your web page to direct the visitor to the app store as quickly as possible. And then, presumably, download the app. The key to landing page optimisation is to make it as simple as possible. So, a simple into as to what the app is and then a very obvious link to the app should be key.

The simpler your website, the better your download rate will be overall – so, make sure that this works before implementing. You can put it forward for user testing before making it live.

Ultimately, your ability to optimise your app for good SEO is down to what you want to do with it. The way in which you optimise can boost your business app and ensure you have a much better download rate, with overall better success.